Lost
by Baruma
Summary: Oneshot. Hermione has a trick played on her and ends up naked in the Shrieking Shack. AU no magic, darkish type fic, weird ending.


Really weird Halloween-type writing thingy. This was written as a normal story first, then I kinda stuck the Potterverse into it, so there is no magic, and Hogwarts is only a special boarding school that has nothing to do with the story. Enjoy!

* * *

"God it's cold." She shivered, wrapping cold hands around bare flesh, and jumped when she realized it. 'Those jerks,' she though. Her friends and she were planning this joke for one of the younger year Gryffindors, not to her. Hell, leaving them here naked was her idea.

She looked around the room as her eyes adjusted to the darkness. She was in the Shrieking Shack down in Hogsmeade. It was widely rumored that it was haunted, but Hermione really didn't believe it. Spirits and ghosts didn't exist, no matter what she _thought_ she saw when she was younger.

The grimy little window let in little moonlight, and what did shine in made the room seem spooky and eerie. The room was full of bookcases stacked with books so high it seem as though they may topple over at any minute. Over in the corner a random book lay open on a table next to a dirty glass. Sitting still next to the table was an old-fashioned rocking chair. The whole room was covered in a layer of dust so thick she knew there hadn't been anyone living there in many, many years.

She stood and dusted the dirty air off her skin. Looking around, she snatched the old moldy curtains from the window to wrap around her body. They were so moth-eaten in some places they fell apart at her touch, but knowing nothing better to use, she made do.

She walked to the door and opened it quietly. Peeking through the door, she could see out into the hallway. The incredibly long hallway, which is, by the way, also incredibly dirty. With a slight grimace on her face, Hermione ventured out into the hallway. Glancing down to the right, she saw three doors, all tightly closed. To the left she noticed that one of the four doors was open. Next to the door sat a little stand with a broken oil lamp, both covered in dust.

'Well,' she thought. 'It's either pick the obviously _scary movie door _down to the left, or randomly chose one of the closed doors to the right. She debated as she stared a long time at the cracked door, then down the hallway, then back. 'Well, I guess I might as well follow their rules.' Silently she shuffled down the hall towards the open door, wrapped only in moldy curtains and sniffling when the dust in the air irritated her nose. 'Well, here goes nothing.' Her hand flew up and pushed the door the rest of the way open.

* * *

The door stuck when it was halfway open. A putrid smell wafted out and made her gag. She slipped in through the doorway and scanned the room around her. Tightly her fingers clutched the curtain as her brain processed what she saw.

The kitchen, as in the rest of the shack, was covered in dust. In a corner a table was prettily decorated by an old checkered tablecloth and dead flowers. As she walked fully into the kitchen, she noticed dark brown stains on the floor and counter. Obviously used utensils were lying out across the counter.

Thick cobwebs were strung across the room, sticking to the floor, ceiling, and everything else. Something that looked suspiciously like a dead cat was sitting in the corner and seemed to be where all the cobwebs were originating from. The moon shone pale and dim in the room, but was suddenly blocked by a passing cloud. The room became so dark Hermione could barely see her own hand when she lifted it to her face. The loss of light seemed to make the room at least ten degrees colder, and made her shiver in her rotten make shift dress.

Suddenly she heard a scratchy, thin voice that sounded as if someone were recovering from bronchitis. Her eyes darted around the musty room, and saw in the light of the escaping moon, an old pumpkin pie, once so sweet, now maggot-ridden, sitting on the window sill. A knife was stuck in the middle, and looked to her to be the same color as the stains on the floor and counter.

Again she heard the voice, though this time it was unmistakably the meow of a cat with a bad chest cold. Frantically she scanned the room in search of the source, and screamed when she found it. In the corner, the mass of animal flesh was rising in the form of a cat. The sick odor of the animal was that of dead bodies sitting too long in the summer sun. Her scream pierced through the air like an arrow. She shot out of the kitchen still screaming, attempting to slam the rusted door closed behind her, leaving the sick animal alone inside. "God have mercy."

* * *

Her breathing was shallow and frantic as she stood outside the kitchen door. She had locked the dead animal inside and fervently hoped it stayed that way. Silently she looked around the hall and realized she had no idea what to do. Deciding to go into another room, she randomly picked one of the doors at the other end of the hall.

As she walked into the new room she gasped. It was only a bedroom, but seemed to be one from the French renaissance. "Wow." Although the room was covered in fine white dust, it was obvious the walls were painted a rich burgundy, with red and gold highlights across the room in the form of picture frames, benches, and expensive bed sheets. The look of the room, in all its splendor, looking as her father's had before he died, and the stress of being tossed into the Shrieking Shack with the dead cat, caused her to weep in thick choking sobs.

"Hush my child." The voice sounded faint and feathery, as if voiced from far away. Her cries stopped as her eyes searched the room in wonder for the voice. A hand randomly caressed her chestnut curls and caused gooseflesh to crawl across her skin. "All will be well." She stood, her knees shaking wildly. "Who are you?" She called out. The wind whistled outside the shack causing the shutters to rattle. "All will be well." The voice whispered, sounding distinctly feminine.

A flash of a woman with pale chestnut hair tied up in a red bow skittered across her vision. She was wearing a white dress soaked in crimson blood. Her eyes, a vivid, smoky cinnamon, glowed in her direction. "Oh God don't go!" She began crying anew, fat tears rolling down her cheeks, and fell to the floor in hopelessness. She had heard the stories as everyone else had. How the husband, jealous and thinking his wife unfaithful, had killed her by stabbing her to death. She was a slight woman, a pale brunette with striking cinnamon eyes. Unhappy with her situation and the woman's, she slammed the floor boards beneath her. All at once the boards cracked around her and she went plummeting down through the newly begotten hole in the floor, screaming all the way.

* * *

She squealed as she hit the ground and the breath was knocked out of her. She tried to move, but groaned when pain shot up her body from her hip. In her arms, legs, and hands she could feel splinters from the floor boards piercing her skin. Gingerly she touched the floor, but felt nothing but warm, moist earth. She lifted her head to look around, but the basement, which it obviously was, was pitch black. The little light she could see was high above her in the bedroom she just 'left.'

When she opened her mouth to breathe, a cloud of dust wafted up and choked her. She coughed so violently her hip was ground into the earth, causing her to wince. Slowly she shifted her body so that she was up on her hands and knees. She shivered and pulled the torn cloth closer to her body, but it fell open once again. The air around her was dank and damp, and smelled most of all of mold and mildew.

In her position she was able to crawl around. Her knees and hands hurt, but she ignored the pain. She held one hand out in front of her as she crawled forward slowly. Suddenly she felt her body hit a cold, rickety wire rack. All around her rained hard objects that fell straight on to her. She grabbed the rack for support, but only managed to knock over a pail of something cold and sticky. It smelled horrible, and she could feel the fallen objects cut into her thighs and scratch her arms.

She screamed in frustration and began throwing the things that had fallen on her across the room. She could tell her hands were bleeding when she grabbed something sharp like a knife and felt warmth spread across her hand. Again she screamed, and flung it hard away from her. She heard glass shatter in the direction she threw it. "Yeah that all I need, glass in my flesh too!" She groaned, then sighed and got back up on her hands and knees. She began crawling out of the pile of stuff.

The air around her made her skin prickle, and though the curtain was now cold and wet, she kept it with her and it stuck to her back. Her hair was soaked into ringlets, and drops of the liquid fell on her hands and ran down her face and arms. Anxiously she dreamt of a hot bath with rose scented water, of vanilla sugar candles burning around her, and deftly ignored the glass that was piercing into her flesh. Suddenly her hand hit something slimy and slipped out from beneath her. Her body went falling forward and her chin was skinned on the rock she fell on. She picked herself up and crawled on. Her hand hit a moldy wall, then dry, dusty stairs.

She grinned to herself. Slowly but surely, she began climbing the steps. Behind her she left muddy, bloody prints on the wood. After climbing about seven steps she began wondering how many were left. She heard a banging ahead of her, and when she looked up, a bright light was shining directly into her eyes, causing suns to float about in her vision. She screamed, and fell backwards down the stairs.

* * *

"Oh my God!" He thundered down the stairs, jumping every other one. He had heard a crashing in the house when he was checking over the property, so he came in to check. When he opened the basement door, a bedraggled, naked girl had been climbing the stairs on her hands and knees leaving a bloody trail behind her. He knelt down beside her and pushed aside the matted hair.

She was thin, delicately wrought. Her hair seemed waist length, her nose small and pert. The missing curtains from the living room were barely wrapped around her, stuck on by the pail of paint he saw had fallen over. She was covered in bruises and cuts, and he saw her hand had been sliced open and was still bleeding. He touched the dark bruise on her cheek and saw her eyes flutter. When they opened and she moaned, he saw they were a deep cinnamon-brown that seemed to swirl as much as he was sure her head was.

"Who are you?" Her voice was raspy and thin. 'What has happened to her?' He wondered. "I'm the owner of this place." She began screaming, a loud, thin wail, and tried to scramble away. "You're evil, pure evil. You killed her and now she can't even rest in peace!" Her breathing was spasmodic and her eyes were darting around looking for a way out. "What are you talking abut?" He jumped at her, shaking her rapidly. Her head was being tossed about violently, a deafening shrill sound emitted constantly.

"You killed her, then yourself, and now your both ghosts and you've come to eat my insides!" He growled madly, and clenched his fingertips into the cuts on her arms. He picked her up and threw her at the stairs. She hit her head on the banister, the blood running freely down her side. Again he jumped at her, only this time smashing his lips against hers.

"Why must you do this to me?" He wailed. "You keep doing this to me, making me madder and madder and madder. What do you want me to do!" The last time he got this mad at her he bit her on the inside of her thigh so hard she bled. The scar, in the crescent shape of his teeth, was still there. "I don't know, I don't know, **I DON'T KNOW!**" His caresses in her hair stopped, his eyes flashing violently.

The scene replayed in her mind. The white and red, oh how it hurt. Again and again, it really did hurt. Oh why did he hate her so? She didn't so anything, she promised. Her blood ran in a dark red pool across the kitchen floor, hunting for her pretty little kitty sitting in the corner.

And it was cold.

* * *

A.N.

I know, I know. It's weird. I wrote it a couple of years ago for English and just found it. If the ending confuses you, go back to where it describes the dead lady, and then reread the last paragraph.

Can you believe this was five pages front and back hand written? I was crazy...

I know I haven't written much lately, but I can't help it. I'm sooooo busy with college, and paying rent, and being a grown up. And what I do write doesn't seem to come out like I want it to. I'm sorry...


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